


Letters Through the Ages

by Latchingontoyou



Category: Carmilla (Web Series), Carmilla - J. Sheridan Le Fanu
Genre: F/F, F/M, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-04-18
Packaged: 2018-06-02 22:14:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6584698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Latchingontoyou/pseuds/Latchingontoyou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Letters are what you write when you live forever. The most important one makes it the person it is written for. Another is meant only for yourself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Elizabeth

My Dearest Elizabeth,

 

                I have become the bearer of the most unfortunate news at this time. I am unable to keep the promise to you to forever and always be your most trusted friend and companion. This is of no fault to you and you should not think that you have done a thing to change my mind or my love for you. My heart is forever yours for so long as you wish it to be, but I am no longer able to see you or write you any further after this one letter.

                My family has decided to marry me to a man who lives only a few days ride from us, but because of his higher social standing, all contact to you will cease to exist until I am wedded and sent to live with him in his home. I do not wish to be apart from you or to never see the unmistakable signature of your handwriting in letters. I do not wish to never be able to hear your voice once more in conversation or to feel your gentle touches on my skin. I do not wish to be apart from you, but I see no future for us.

                I am risking all that I have at this moment in writing this letter to you. I was able to enlist the help of a maid who has family in your land to ensure that this letter finds you without contest. I wish I had more time. I wish I could have just one more moment with you. I wish we could run away together and not have to worry about the duties we owe to our families. I wish I could only be yours.

                I send to you my most treasured necklace in hopes that you know that my heart will always lie with you no matter my marriage nor the time that we spend apart. It has always been you I have had eyes for and it will always be you I see.

                Take care my love, my friend, my dearest. May we know one another in another time.

                                                                                                                                           

  Sincerely yours,

                                                                                                                                                 Mircalla

* * *

 

 

My dearest Elizabeth,

 

                I am saddened by the news of your untimely passing and that I was not able to attend your funeral. I am saddened that I had not known of your illness sooner, for I would have tried as hard as I could to at least see you once on your sick bed.

                I know it has been three years since we had last seen one another or have spoken or sent each other letter, but I have no other way of feeling connected to you apart from the words I am writing now to you. I know that I cannot send this letter to you or that you will never have the chance to read it, but know that I believe that you can see these words. Know that writing to you in this way makes it seem as if you are still alive with me today.

                I wish for you to know that I have not ceased in my love for you. You are still the one in my heart and my dear husband knows this. He has been the perfect gentleman and has not asked of me to bear him children. Nor has he laid a hand on me that has been unwanted. My birthday fast approaches and all I can think about is the night you had stolen me away from my own birthday ball to dance under the stars in the garden.

                I look up to the stars now and I hope to find you amongst them. I hope that you are sat in the sky watching me from above knowing that I still very much love you. I will spend my nights whispering into the night skies my love for you before I rest my eyes until the breaking of dawn.

                I miss you dearly and may I meet you in the heavens when my time comes.

                                                                                                                                                                                Love always,

                                                                                                                                                                                Mircalla


	2. Eleanor

To my dearest Eleanor,

                I have no doubt that I have known you before. I feel it within my very soul in each instance from which I gaze into your beautiful brown eyes. I cannot place this feeling of recognition, but I only hope that I am not the only one who has felt this connection between us. I have found myself becoming lost in everything that you are and I do not wish to find a way out if it means that I will be able to be named yours for so long as I am trapped within you.

                I am aware that you are frightened by the emotions that capture us when we are together, but know that you are not alone in this. I fear that one day we will be caught in our endeavors and will be forced to part from one another for good. I do not wish to lose you as I have just finally found you and have been permitted to taste the sweetness of your lips on my own underneath the trees that line the lake of our special hiding spot. I do not wish to part from you after memorizing the features of your face as you lie asleep in my arms. I do not wish to part from the warmth of you against me as we simply enjoy one another’s company.

                Yet I am no fool to the ways of our world. I will not ask of you to continue to partake in the bond we have formed with one another if fear has invaded you so completely that you will not risk your life as I am ready to do for you. I shall not blame you for wanting to live out the expectations placed on you by your family. I will not force you to do what you do not believe to be worth doing.

                I only wish the best for you and if that is not me then I will understand.

                                                                                                                                                                                Sincerely,

                                                                                                                                                                                Mircalla

 

* * *

My dearest Eleanor,

 

                I apologize. I did not wish for any harm to come to you at the hands of my very own mother. I had not known what she was capable of. I had thought her fair and loving. I thought her understanding. I had not known that I was not allowed to love or be loved by any if it should not be her. I had not known that she would go so far as to rip you from my life in the cruelest of ways. I thought I had known the woman who had given me a second life. I thought I had known the woman who I call mother, but I am sadly mistaken.

                I am deeply sorry for the way you were forced from this world. I will not ask for your forgiveness. I am unworthy of such a thing since I was not able to save you from your fate. I was not able to save you from the pain. I could do nothing more than watch as the life left your eyes and as you were discarded to the ground as if you were nothing but trash to be taken out.

                I cannot rid myself of what happened and accept my punishment of forever seeing you in my nightmares and never remembering your smile or the way you loved me. I accept that I have no right to remember the way you looked at me as if I was the most remarkable person to ever exist in your life. I have no right to that.

                I can only spend my never ending days with the image of your last breath being drawn haunting me and darkening my heart. I wish I could take all of it back. I wish I could have not fallen in love with you if it meant I would still be able to see your bright smile today. I want nothing more than to hear the beating of your heart once more.

                                                                                                                                                                                I apologize,

                                                                                                                                                                                Mircalla


	3. Ezra

My dear friend Ezra,

                I fear that I cannot reciprocate your affections towards me. It is of no fault to who you are as a person for who you are is what draws me to you in the first place. It is that I see in you what I have seen in one other before. It is the reminder of the first person I have ever held a deep affection for. It is the reminder of a love I had once had to abandon due to family circumstances and then one I had to watch be torn away from me. It is what lies in your eyes that forces me to step back and not pursue a relationship with you.

                I am aware that my actions tell you something of the contrary. I know that the kiss we shared and the nights I have spent in your presence being the subject of your paintings has led you to believe that there could be something more and I apologize for such a message.

                Although I may wish to be more to you than just a muse or a dear friend, I know that this wish cannot be fulfilled for my mother will never allow it. It is not that we are of different social standings, it is that my mother does not deem anyone worthy of my love or of loving me. I wish for you to forget me and to move on with your life and to direct your affections elsewhere. There is no future for us and though I wish I could explain why that is, I know that if I do you will cease to exist.

                Know that a piece of my heart rests with you, but do forget me. I am not worth the trouble I may bring to you if you do not.

                                                                                                                                                                                Sincerely,

                                                                                                                                                                                Marcilla

 

* * *

To my Ezra,

                This is the second letter that I have had to write to someone I have had to watch die before me and it has torn me to pieces just the same as the first time. I cannot apologize enough for the trouble I had placed you in. If I had known that you would confront my mother to ask for my hand in marriage I would have never fallen for you in the first place.

                No amount of apologies can bring you back. No amount of tears shed can make you come back to me. No amount of begging can have you standing before me once more. No amount of screams or periods of silence can have your arms wrapped around me once more. I do not know what I did wrong to deserve such a fate of watching you die right before my eyes. I do not know what I have done wrong. I do not know and it is not knowing that eats away at me in the dark night as your face joins another in my nightmares.

                I have made sure that your family has been notified and that they have been given your possessions. It is unfortunate that I have had to remove those paintings that you had done of me along with the sketches in your many books. I cannot have evidence of my existence to be left about. I have kept one sketch you had drawn of me with your signature at the bottom. It was the very first one you had drawn for me when we had first met that night of the ball. I will treasure it in my forever days.

                                                                                                                                                                May you find peace,

                                                                                                                                                                Marcilla


	4. Maryellen

My loving Maryellen,

                In answer to your first question, this is not the first time in which I have had such feelings towards someone of the same sex. In answer to your second, you are not the first one I have ever loved. My heart has known love towards others, but in each the love was not the same. My love for you is not the same as the one I held for them.

                I must tell you that I cannot give you want you wish for. I cannot give you my heart. I may love you, but I cannot give it to you as much as you may desire me to do so. Nothing good comes to those that I have given my love to and I will not subject you to the same fate. Know that I pull away from you out of my love for you. Know that I move away to protect you from the punishment my love enacts onto those who are unfortunate enough to have me love them. Know that I must turn away from you because I have no other choice. If I wish to protect you then I must pretend that I hate you. Maybe then your fate will be different.

                The world is cruel and it is even more so to me. I want for you to find a small semblance of peace in this world in which I do not exist and in which you may be able to forget me. I want for you to give your heart to someone who will be more than willing to reciprocate them in full without a darkening cloud following closely behind them. I want for you to be happy and that happiness does not lie with me.

                                                                                                                                                                Please forgive me,

                                                                                                                                                                Millacra

* * *

 

My sweet Maryellen,

 

                It seems it did not matter that I had bade you farewell and had erased all signs of you having had any contact with me in any form. You still met a terrible fate at the hands of my mother and I am left with no clue as to what to do.

                My heart aches at knowing that you had been used as a sacrifice for the dealings my mother had entangled herself in. It pains me to having seen you being dragged into the house of my mother in the darkness of the night. The sound of your voice calling out for me plagues me and threatens to shatter my ability to hear for the simple fact that there was nothing that I could do to save you.

                I had tried. I had thought that if I showed that I did not return your affections that you would be saved. I thought that if I had turned my back on you that you would gain your freedom, but I am only a naïve girl who hopes for too much. I hope for too much from my mother who does love me dearly, but is not able to comprehend how I can find myself in any form of relationship with anyone. She deems no one worthy of my affections and yet I feel that it should be my decision as to who I should allow close to me.

                I admit that I digress from the purpose of this letter because my insides are caught in a turmoil of regret and sorrow. If I had known that it would not have mattered if we were together or not, then I would have spent the time I had been agonizing over not being able to be near you with time spent holding you in my arms and stealing kisses behind bookcases and during our long walks around the garden. I would have held your hand in mine until it was time for us to part to our homes. I would have run to you in the middle of the night to whisper to you of all I have learned of the stars and watched as you marveled at them with the look of pure excitement in your eyes. I would have given you more.

                Now I am left with the shrill shriek of your screams echoing within my mind. I am left with the look of disappointment in your eyes as you passed through my home and all I was able to do was look on as you disappeared into the basement. I am left with the image of your sorrowful tears trailing down your paled cheeks as I fought to hold back my own.

                I am left with my nightmares.

                                                                                                                                                                                I am sorry,

                                                                                                                                                                                Millacra


End file.
